At Virginia School, Students Express Relief and Satisfaction at War's End

In the staff lunchroom, one teacher related her class's sudden
interest in singing "The Star-Spangled Banner."

In Room 326, the seventh-period senior seminar launched into a
debate that offered opinions reflecting the entire spectrum of American
popular opinion.

Such were the scenes here last Thursday at Potomac Senior High
School, near the Marine Corps base at Quantico, hours after the
cessation of hostilities in the Persian Gulf.

The disparate emotions expressed--not only relief, but also
satisfaction with the prowess of the U.S.-led forces, a belief that God
had favored the United States with victory, and hopes that relatives
and friends overseas would soon be coming home--were as much a part of
the day as acid-washed jeans and hall passes.

President Bush's announcement of the allied victory and his offer of
a cease-fire to Iraq prompted similar expressions at schools around the
country. (See related story, page 12.)

In Potomac Senior High's "media center," Charlie Driscoll said he
was "extremely relieved" when he heard the President's televised speech
the night before. The senior voiced confidence that U.S. troops
returning from the Gulf would find a warm homefront reception, "unlike
[after] Vietnam, where the whole country was against them."

Patrick Keith, a sophomore whose father is in the Marines, said the
cease-fire had been a primary topic of discussion that morning at
school. Students were enthusiastic about the allied victory, he said,
greeting each other with "It's over. We won. We got them out of
there."

Sean Jaehne, a senior whose father is a Marine colonel based at
Quantico, said the war had hit home for him because he had lived in
Germany for a year and had come to know members of the Army VII Corps
who were deployed to the Gulf.

"I was really relieved" by the end of the fighting, he said, in part
because he had wondered whether his friends "could handle it."

Another senior, Susan Hixson, said much of the discussion in her
sociology class throughout the Gulf crisis has focused on current
events and how the students feel about them. At the start of each
class, she said, the floor is open for student comments.

"It's supposed to take five minutes," Ms. Hixson said. "But it
always ends up taking the whole hour."

Christi McGee, who has two close friends serving in the Gulf, said
she hoped that when the time came she could skip school and go greet
the returning troops. But she expressed concern because "we don't know
at this point when they're going to be coming home."

Ms. McGee, a senior, said she thought that because this was the
first war she and her contemporaries had lived through, it served as a
kind of galvanizing force for them.

"I think it made a lot of the students closer," she said.

In the staff lunchroom here, Louevenia Quash, a special-education
teacher, told of how her class of 13 had enthusiastically recited the
salute to the flag that morning. For the first time, she said, all the
students were on their feet immediately, and each spoke the words
aloud, which they have not often done.

"Today was the day they first learned the meaning of the Pledge of
Allegiance," she said. Recently, Ms. Quash said, her students have
taken a greater interest in current events, and that morning several
had expressed their eagerness to go to the Gulf if their service in the
military had been requested.

"That gave me a sense of pride," Ms. Quash said.

Also that day, she said, her students all sang along with the
national anthem on the radio and asked to spend the whole day singing.
"They never wanted to sing before," Ms. Quash said.

For Dot McCabe, a counselor at the school, the end of hostilities
will bring changes in her routine.

Ms. McCabe, whose husband is a retired Navy officer who served in
Vietnam, has run an Operation Desert Storm support group for students
since the war started in January. She said she would now disperse the
group, which includes 30 students in grades 9 through 12 with family
members or close friends in the Gulf forces. The group will hold one
last meeting before scaling back to individual appointments.

In addition to offering emotional support, Ms. McCabe said, her
group often ended up as more of a forum for the latest information on
the war. Even beyond the group, she said, her office, with its radio
tuned to Persian Gulf news, often drew students who wanted to stay
informed.

"We had a lot of kids concerned with ... friends on the front
lines--that they were going to die," Ms. McCabe said. "Now," she said,
"the kids are thrilled."

No nuance about the war or the President's cease-fire speech seemed
to escape the attention of 14 seniors during a 45-minute discussion of
the events in Sally Vinroot's senior elective seminar.

Yet, according to the teacher, the intellectual gymnastics were
business as usual for the innovative course that takes a
multidisciplinary approach and aims to cultivate students'
critical-thinking skills.

At the start of the war, Ms. Vinroot said, she "dropped our lesson
plan" and threw the seminar, which touches on everything from social
studies to mathematics and philosophy in two semesters, open to
discussion of the Gulf crisis.

Brian Sullivan, who is headed to West Point next year, praised the
allied coalition for fulfilling its objectives and lauded the "putting
of a little bit of wisdom" into the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein.

"They did a hell of a job," he said of the forces that liberated
Kuwait.

Steve Graham weighed in more than once on the prospect of continued
instability in the postwar Middle East.

Iraq is "extremely unstable," he said. "The Kurds could easily
revolt. There are so many different religious sects in Iraq [that the
country] could be divided incredibly."

Meanwhile, Kris Smerick worried that Saddam would achieve martyrdom
in the eyes of the Iraqi people.

Across the group of encircled chairs, Jeff Overand would have none
of that. "They're not going to" make their leader a martyr, he
countered. "He lied to them."

But Kris Attland seemed disturbed by many of the opinions being
voiced around her. "We're saying Americans are always right," she said.
''We're not always right."

Later, Mr. Graham wondered what Israel's stand might now be, since
that country has vowed to retaliate against Iraq for its repeated
missile attacks. The Israelis are "going to retaliate," he
predicted.

Other debate among the class members centered on Iraq's postwar
military might, the United Nations resolutions, the role of the United
States in helping maintain a geopolitical balance of power, and Iraqi
atrocities in Kuwait.

In the end, the 2 P.M. bell brought a close to the discussion.

"When something like this comes up," Ms. Vinroot said, "they simply
respond with all the energy and attention they bring to everything
else."

Vol. 10, Issue 24, Page 1, 12

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